Generally, signatures (or seals) are often required to authenticate documents such as a specification and drawings, which are prepared or reviewed by professionals such as a registered architect, a professional engineer, a patent attorney, a doctor and the like. Under conventional professional licensing systems, for example, the laws of registered architects or engineers, signatures (or seals) of professionals on paper documents are needed. In such a case, there is the problem of making unnecessary print-outs only for the purpose of signature (or seal) despite the fact that a large number of the related documents have been already stored in an electronic storage medium. Further, it is also a time-consuming process to obtain and wait for the completion of the professional's signature (or seal).
For businesses, once any change is newly made on the blueprint due to design changes, it may communicate once more with the professional who understands the original plan and is in charge of signing (or sealing) it for review. If the professional is outside of the country or he/she is participating in the other project in a distant location or his/her whereabouts are unknown, the work may require reexamination by the other professional, which will result in a significant delay in the progress of business.
In addition, there also have been some problems associated with authenticating and maintaining documents with the seals affixed thereto in terms of whether they are the latest version or they are the original/copy version of the blueprint. In other words, it is difficult to warrant that no design changes have ever been made since a professional signed or affixed seal, and that the signature (or seal) is truly valid for the corresponding printed edition.
Furthermore, a document such as an original design or a report with a signature or seal implemented in accordance with the conventional method of affixing seal does not have enough information to verify the validity of the professional's license, i.e., to check whether it is illegally lent, or it is forged or invalid at the time of verification.
Therefore, it is helpful for professionals to prove the validity of their license objectively and it is helpful for clients to verify that the signature of professionals on the electronic documents, i.e. designs and reports, is valid.